CNN's Stelter accused of breaching network's confidentiality agreement with Sandmann: 'May cost him his job'
CNN's chief media correspondent Brian Stelter may have landed himself in hot water, according to the attorney of Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann. Last
week, Sandmann announced that The Washington Post settled the $250
million defamation lawsuit he filed over its botched coverage of a viral
confrontation with a Native American elder that had portrayed the Kentucky teen as the aggressor. This followed the multi-million dollar settlement CNN made with the teenager back in January. However,
Sandmann's attorney Lin Wood spotted a retweet from Stelter of a tweet
written by attorney Mark Zaid, who speculated about how much money the
teen walked away with from the settlement. "Those with zero legal
experience (as far as I can tell) should not be conjecturing on lawsuits
they know nothing about. What kind of journalism is that?" Zaid asked.
"I've litigated defamation cases. [Sandmann] was undoubtedly paid
nuisance value settlement & nothing more." Wood accused the "Reliable Sources" host of breaching his network's own confidentiality agreement with his client. "This
retweet by @brianstelter may have cost him his job at @CNN. It is
called breach of confidentiality agreement. Brian Stelter is a liar. I
know how to deal with liars," Wood tweeted with a screenshot of
Stelter's retweet. Sandmann knocked the media guru, tweeting "Brian Stelter just can’t learn some basic lessons over at CNN." "I
can’t decide if it’s worse to be Brian Stelter or believe Brian
Stelter. He was never in any court hearing or meeting I was. So why does
he act like he knows anything?" Sandmann added. CNN analyst Asha Rangappa appeared to agree with Zaid as well. "I’d guess $25K to go away," Rangappa wrote.
Responding
to Rangappa's tweet, Wood wrote "Heads are going to roll at CNN or
@N1ckSandmann is going to filing another lawsuit & reveal truth." Wood
leveled a similar charge against Washington Post reporter Dan Zak, who
suggested on Friday that the Post settled "for a small amount... in
order to avoid a more expensive trial," later adding that it's the
"American way." Zak has since deleted the tweet, but he doubled
down on the assertion, writing, "I delete about 30 percent of my tweets
within 15 minutes. All are deleted within four months via Tweet Delete!
Except really old tweets, which Tweet Delete doesn’t reach. But I stand
by this theory! It’s the American way." A spokesperson for The
Washington Post told Fox News, "Dan’s tweet was taken down because it
had no basis in fact. Dan has no knowledge about the agreement." CNN and Lin Wood did not immediately respond to Fox News' requests for comment. On Friday, Sandmann touted his victory against The Washington Post on Twitter. "On
2/19/19, I filed $250M defamation lawsuit against Washington Post.
Today, I turned 18 & WaPo settled my lawsuit. Thanks to
@ToddMcMurtry & @LLinWood for their advocacy. Thanks to my family
& millions of you who have stood your ground by supporting me. I
still have more to do," Sandmann wrote. Sandmann offered a not-so-subtle warning to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. "We have settled with WAPO and CNN. The fight isn’t over. 2 down. 6 to go. Don’t hold your breath @jack," he tweeted. Wood
similarly wrote, "For our present to @N1ckSandmann to celebrate his
18th Birthday, @ToddMcMurtry & I gave Nicholas the gift of justice
from . . . THE WASHINGTON POST #FightBack." A spokesperson for The
Washington Post told Fox News, "We are pleased that we have been able
to reach a mutually agreeable resolution of the remaining claims in this
lawsuit." In
March 2019, Sandmann's attorneys filed a suit against CNN for its
coverage of the incident before all the facts had surfaced. The teen was
seeking a whopping $800 million in damages from CNN, NBC, and the Post. Attorney Todd McMurtry previously told Fox News that lawsuits against “as many as 13 other defendants" would be filed. Among
them: ABC, CBS, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, NPR, Slate, The
Hill, and Gannett, which owns the Cincinnati Enquirer, as well as
miscellaneous other small outfits, according to McMurtry. Sandmann
was swept up in a controversy after a video clip depicted the "MAGA"
hat-wearing student smiling at Nathan Phillips beating a drum and
singing a chant as he was surrounded by Sandmann's peers, who all had
joined in on the chant in front of the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in
Washington D.C. However,
several mainstream media outlets, including CNN and The Washington
Post, portrayed the incident with Sandmann and the other teens as being
racially charged before additional footage later showed that a group
of Black Hebrew Israelites had provoked the confrontation, slinging
racial slurs at the students as they were waiting for their bus
following the March For Life event. The footage then showed
Phillips, who was in town for the Indigenous Peoples March, approaching
the students amid the rising tension between the two groups.
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